Reaper Man
by herworship429
Summary: "This is the moment that changes everything. This is the moment when you have to choose." (aka, Frank goes home for the last time) Season 2 Spoilers!
First of all, here there be spoilers! Huge spoilers! So pay heed, and go finish season 2 if you haven't already (It's awesome, I promise)...

Still here? Great! I suppose this is a little ditty about letting go. Except, you know, from the perspective of a deranged sociopath. So we're not exactly talking sunshine and unicorns here.

* * *

Your first steps through the door aren't hesitant, though you think maybe they should be, because this is the eventuality that you have been avoiding ever since the park, and the hospital; ever since you died, and then woke up again.

As it turns out, that is the least of all the impossible things you now know to be true.

 _One batch, two batch…_

The house is silent. Silent and dark, and if it hadn't been for that, you might have thought that the kids were just asleep, that your wife had turned in for the night, that you were just coming home late. For an instant, you think that she'll come padding down the stairs and look at you with that quizzical expression, asking without speaking where you've been and then smiling softly as she gestures for you to come to bed already.

 _Penny and dime…_

But this is little more than a daydream. And these are the things that you know to be true: silence and darkness; an empty house full of memories of a life that is long gone; that no matter how many bad people you kill in their names, your family isn't coming back.

You take a seat at the head of the table, still set, waiting patiently for a family dinner that will never come. The whole house feels frozen in time, a macabre display put on to drive you even crazier than you already are. And as you sit there, you realize that if there is a way for you to continue to exist now, you won't find it here. The only things that live in this house now are ghosts, and you aren't a ghost anymore. Your mission is complete. You are free from the shackles of notoriety. You could fade into the background, and allow whatever you are now to die.

Maybe not in peace. But then, maybe you will never really know peace. Maybe you never have. And maybe that's alright.

You laughed in Red's face when he talked about hope, because what good is hope, and justice, when justice never gets done, not really? What you do is a necessary evil, and you are willing to pay the price for it. You were ready to accept that you _are_ the boogeyman the world believes you to be.

But then the Devil of Hell's Kitchen turned up in his daylight disguise, offering to help you for reasons you cannot fathom.

Then Karen Page looked you in the eye and refused to believe that you are a deranged sociopath, and nothing else.

Then Nelson delivered his grade-A slice of bullshit to the jury in the middle of the trial of the century, and somewhere deep down, a spark of something that could only be described as hope flickered to life.

 _Your life doesn't end here_.

It is a refrain you cannot get out of your head. It torments you in your nightmares. But then, you realize it's exactly what your wife would tell you, if she could have. That they are gone, but you don't have to be. That you still have something important to offer the world, even if you can't see it yet.

The trial is over. Everyone thinks you're dead. And maybe Frank Castle is. Maybe he is the ghost that belongs in this empty house. But the Punisher is still there. And the Punisher can go on where Frank can't.

You will always be the one who doesn't hesitate to kill, if that is what it takes; the Grim Reaper with a sniper rifle. But you can pick where you point the barrel, and in the end, you and you alone are the one who decides when to pull the trigger.

 _Well, Reaper Man?_ You ask yourself with the faintest ghost of a grin, _what's it gonna be?_

The table is empty, and they aren't coming back. And you know that this is the moment that changes everything. This is the moment when you have to choose.

Choose to allow vengeance alone to drive you. Choose to believe you really are the monster in the closet they all fear. Choose to fight a one-man war against all those who might have wronged you.

Or maybe you choose to burn the past away instead. Maybe, in the name of the family you lost, you choose to try something better. Choose to nurture that tiny spark of hope. Choose to stand with the other fallen angels who defend this city from its darkness, and its demons.

Maybe then you find that, together, you are more than you think you are. Stronger than you should be, and greater than the sum of your parts. And maybe then, you'll find you _are_ making a difference. It probably isn't much of one, but it's better than nothing.

Whatever your life has become, you understand now that Nelson was right. Your life is not over. You just need a new path to follow.

So you walk away from the house as it burns. And you don't look back.

* * *

Reviews are nice, if you feel like it. Thanks for reading!


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